JUDITH 1) 1:1 – An historical romance, clearly fictional. Written in the time of the Maccabees, 150 BC, after the Seleucid persecution had eased and nationalistic fever was high. Set in Nineveh in 594 BC, when Zedekiah was on the shaky throne of Judah. See 4:6 which identifies the date of the story at the time of High Priest Joakim, so the Book of Judith would be between the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah. /// String of anachronisms: Assyria of the 7th century BC was under the rule of Nebuchadnezzar of 6th century, sends an army under General Holophernes of the 4th century to attack a re-established Judea of the 5th century. /// Jerome thought of the book as an allegory depicting the way the Church gets the better of the devil. Martin Luther thought it a holy parable describing how the Jews triumphed over their enemies through divine intervention. Others consider it a passion play. 2) 1:5-6 -- Ragau is Rages in Tobit 4. Hydaspes is the Jhelam River, which forms the border between Persia and the Punjab in India 3) 2:4 – The only historical general of the name of Holophernes was in command of Persian troops in 346 BC, that ruled Egypt under Artaxerxes III, 250 years after Judith's story. 4) 4:6 – Joakim was the son of the Jeshua who with Zerubbabel rebuilt the Temple. (Neh 12:10) /// Bethulia does not and never did exist in Judea. It may represent Thermopylae: Xerxes is Nebuchadnezzar, Greece is Judea, Holophernes is Mardonius, the mountain pass is where the forces of Persia are defeated by a tiny army of Greeks. 5) 4:8 – This was the Sanhedrin, another proof that the book was written at the time of the Maccabees. 6) 8:1 – Judith means "Jewish woman," the feminine form of Judah. Her lineage is clearly non- historical. The names cannot be identified and some appear nowhere else in the Bible. 7) 12:10 – Bagoas is the Greek form of the Persian name meaning "given by God." This name was often used for eunuchs, the most famous being a renegade Egyptian eunuch in the service of Artaxerxes III in the campaign against Egypt in which the real Holophernes fought. .